House votes to end scholarship perk, Quinn expected to sign bill

May 21, 2012|By Alissa Groeninger | Tribune reporter

State Rep. Jack Franks, D-Woodstock, on the House floor at the State Capitol in Springfield in October. (E. Jason Wambsgans, Chicago Tribune)

The Illinois House today voted to end a century-old legislative scholarship program beset by decades of abuse by politicians who passed out the tuition waivers to relatives and children of cronies and campaign contributors.

The 79-32 vote sends the scholarship ban to Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, who has said he’ll sign it into law.

Rep. Monique Davis, D-Chicago, warned that doing away with the scholarships will hurt high school students who might not be able to afford college.

"What more can we take from them?" Davis said. "Will your heart really let you take a scholarship from a kid who's trying to get a degree in the state of Illinois?"

The Tribune and other news outlets have long documented questionable awards under the scholarship program, which allowed legislators to hand out tuition waivers to state universities.

Federal authorities have subpoenaed the scholarship records of former Rep. Robert Molaro, D-Chicago. The move followed a Tribune report that Molaro had given $94,000 worth of tuition waivers to four children of a friend and longtime political supporter. The children did not live in Molaro's Southwest Side district, according to their driver's licenses and documents submitted to their universities.

Approval comes after the Illinois Senate long had stood a stumbling block to ending the program. That was true under both Democratic and Republican rule. But a few weeks ago, Democratic Senate President John Cullerton announced he supported a ban on legislative scholarships.